Alright, so I did a little shopping today and I found some clear ammonia(the kind that doesn't bubble and fizz when shaken) and I also purchased a mini master test kit made by nutrafin- It tests high and low ph, nitrites, amonia, gh and kh...I got it for 20 bucks so i figured it was a good deal. Anyways, I added 8ml of ammonia to my 12 gallon tank as well as 'filter juice" that I got from a nice clean lfs. ...Actually, I initially tested both, reading .25ppm for api and "0" ppm, then added 3mL and tested the ammonia levels again- this time Api read a little less than 1ppm and Nutrafin was reading 1.2. I decided to add 5mL this time, as my goal was 5ppm to start this cycle....I proceeded with the Nutrafin reading and got 4.9ppm, perfect....API gave me a reading of 8ppm!:shock: Eh, maybe not so high as 8ppm, but definitely not in the 4.9ppm ballpark. Has anyone else had this problem?

nitrites: 0
pH: 7.6
KH: 80
GH: 240 :shock:

...Why would they give me a nitrite test and no nitrate test? :(

onefish2fish

02-08-2009 03:23 PM

... i personally like API and salifert ( and i hear elos is of = value of salifert )

it could be possible the test kits old or your not properly doing the test. that is strange that you get nitrites and not trates.

Freddiesbuns

02-08-2009 06:53 PM

I personally had a problem with Nutrafin recently, the test had shown nitrites when there weren't in my tank- I did water changes every 2 days for 2 months until I found out the test was giving me baloney results! Needless to say, API!